Anna Karenina eBook

“Oh, it’s a work of real importance!”
said Sviazhsky. But to show he was not trying
to ingratiate himself with Vronsky, he promptly added
some slightly critical remarks.

“I wonder, though, count,” he said, “that
while you do so much for the health of the peasants,
you take so little interest in the schools.”

“C’est devenu tellement commun les
ecoles,” said Vronsky. “You
understand it’s not on that account, but it just
happens so, my interest has been diverted elsewhere.
This way then to the hospital,” he said to
Darya Alexandrovna, pointing to a turning out of the
avenue.

The ladies put up their parasols and turned into the
side path. After going down several turnings,
and going through a little gate, Darya Alexandrovna
saw standing on rising ground before her a large pretentious-looking
red building, almost finished. The iron roof,
which was not yet painted, shone with dazzling brightness
in the sunshine. Beside the finished building
another had been begun, surrounded by scaffolding.
Workmen in aprons, standing on scaffolds, were laying
bricks, pouring mortar out of vats, and smoothing
it with trowels.

“How quickly work gets done with you!”
said Sviazhsky. “When I was here last
time the roof was not on.”

“By the autumn it will all be ready. Inside
almost everything is done,” said Anna.

“And what’s this new building?”

“That’s the house for the doctor and the
dispensary,” answered Vronsky, seeing the architect
in a short jacket coming towards him; and excusing
himself to the ladies, he went to meet him.

Going round a hole where the workmen were slaking
lime, he stood still with the architect and began
talking rather warmly.

“The front is still too low,” he said
to Anna, who had asked what was the matter.

“I said the foundation ought to be raised,”
said Anna.

“Yes, of course it would have been much better,
Anna Arkadyevna,” said the architect, “but
now it’s too late.”

“Yes, I take a great interest in it,”
Anna answered Sviazhsky, who was expressing his surprise
at her knowledge of architecture. “This
new building ought to have been in harmony with the
hospital. It was an afterthought, and was begun
without a plan.”

Vronsky, having finished his talk with the architect,
joined the ladies, and led them inside the hospital.

Although they were still at work on the cornices outside
and were painting on the ground floor, upstairs almost
all the rooms were finished. Going up the broad
cast-iron staircase to the landing, they walked into
the first large room. The walls were stuccoed
to look like marble, the huge plate-glass windows were
already in, only the parquet floor was not yet finished,
and the carpenters, who were planing a block of it,
left their work, taking off the bands that fastened
their hair, to greet the gentry.

“This is the reception room,” said Vronsky.
“Here there will be a desk, tables, and benches,
and nothing more.”